Hollywood Days and Nights [Paperback]

Benjamin J. Stein (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Former White House speechwriter Stein's (Her Only Sin, etc.) diary of six months, from November 1985 to May 1986, is a failed attempt to humorously depict what life is like for a nice guy living in crazy Hollywood. Complaining about his Porsche and his money problems, Stein goes to Morton's or the Hard Rock Cafe with friends and high school kids (he's researching a book on secondary education), whom he mocks as particularly ill-informed. He calls his agent, who won't speak to him; pitches ideas for screenplays and sitcoms to studio bigwigs; gossips about celebrities; encourages friends to commiserate over his bad luck; goes to exclusive parties; and talks about what a decent fellow he is (he likes dogs and children). Stein's observations include: "Jean has big blue eyes and silky blond hair. She is too smart to look that good"; "Movies are a peculiarly American art form"; "Oooh, I have some very juicy gossip. Very, very juicy. Very hot stuff." Among the many low points in this disappointing effort, Stein calls Sylvester Stallone "a creative genius" and Richard Nixon "a sensitive poet locked up in a politician's body."
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Like most Hollywood novels, newspaper columnist/teacher/deal pitcher Stein's diary, spanning November 1985 to May 1986, simply confirms all the cliches about Hollywood life we nonresidents hold so dearly. What he gives usthe money, cars, deals, movie/TV executives, lunches, sunis real tinsel to be sure, but one grows a tad weary of intellectual-in-Disneyland Stein's love/hate relationship with the city and industry. After a while, his problems in dealing with his luxury lifestyle fall on increasingly numb ears; the cost of his lunches at carefully name-dropped trendy restaurants would probably add up to a lot of librarians' annual salaries. Like the movies and TV shows crawling from the factory, this is bearably amusing but very familiar stuff. David Bartholomew, NYPL
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 166 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (June 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553345206
• ISBN-13: 978-0553345209
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,856,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ben Stein (Los Angeles, CA) is a respected economist who is known to many as a movie and television personality, but has worked more in personal and corporate finance than anywhere else. He has written about finance for Barron's, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Fortune; was one of the chief busters of the junk-bond frauds of the 1980s; has been a longtime critic of corporate executives' self-dealing; and has cowritten eight finance books. Stein travels the country speaking about finance in both serious and humorous ways, and is a regular contributor to CBS's Sunday Morning, CNN, and Fox News. He was the 2009 winner of the Malcolm Forbes Award for Excellence in Financial Journalism.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I kid you not - the best book ever on Hollywood., November 28, 2001

By 

Michael Craig (Scottsdale, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hollywood Days and Nights (Paperback)

Before Ben Stein because the famous voice or commercial pitchman or game show host, he struggled around the fringes of the film business. Because, in addition to being lured out to Hollywood by Norman Lear (All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, for those of you too young to remember), he graduated at the top of his class at Yale Law School, was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, worked as a lawyer for the FTC, and is the son of well-known economist Herbert Stein (also an excellent writer), Stein's diaries about life in Hollywood are not the usual fare. The book is hilarious, informative, and also tells - back when it really happened without the perspective of later history - the story about how Ben Stein was "discovered" by Hollywood. It was purely by accident that he got his break in Ferris Buehler's Day Off, but those accidents are part of the fabric of Hollywood. Stein does a wonderful job putting it all in perspective.